


In which Tony finds himself in another universe.

by FyoraSilverwolf



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/M, M/M, Universe-crossing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-06-03 13:55:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6613255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FyoraSilverwolf/pseuds/FyoraSilverwolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or at least his mind is there. Body is another story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this up at work & then typed it up over a week ago and haven't felt comfortable coming back to it, but here it is anyway. I hope maybe it's at least enjoyable despite not being finished.

Tony looked down at slim, long-fingered hands with perfectly manicured nails. “These are not my hands.” His voice was clearly female, a little on the low side, but he would’ve called it sultry were it not alarmingly foreign. He looked around, becoming aware of a long pony tail as it shifted on his back. “This is definitely my workshop,” he said of the chaotic workspace surrounding him “but this is most definitely not my body and I don’t even know what this is that I – _she_ – was working on.”

“Excuse me, sir, but have you consumed any hallucinogens recently that I am unaware of?” a familiar British voice intoned from everywhere and nowhere in particular.

“…Vision?” Tony asked quietly, looking around for the red humanoid.

“I see no records of that as a name for any kind of drug, colloquial or otherwise, could you clarify, sir?”

Knowing where the speakers would have been in his own workshop, he was able to determine the origin of the voice this second time. An expression of awe mixed with a tinge of sadness crossed his features “JARVIS??”

“Indeed, sir. Now, again, what have you consumed that I am unaware of?”  
  
“Nothing, J. I think I know what happened.” He replied, turning back to the mysterious construction dissected on the table that had been in front of him when he became conscious.

“Then would you mind enlightening me? Your current vital signs are reading a bit abnormal, and Dum-E in particular is concerned.”

*****

Toni inspected the machine in front of her, well, him at the moment. So Tony was trying to use this to go back in time. Fix something he thought he’d screwed up. There were several things she thought she’d screwed up. Making weapons at all might have been one of them. But without the weapons, there’d be no Iron Man either, and it was clear that this Tony felt the same way about the Iron Man. So what was he trying to fix? She turned a circuit board over in her hands.

She stopped. “FRIDAY, what happened to Jarvis?”  
  
“He…” the previously confident AI faltered “…died, of sorts, trying to prevent Ultron from destroying the world. You’ve told me you can still hear him when you talk with the Vision, though, and haven’t decided whether that makes you feel better or worse about it.” FRIDAY booted up a holographic display, showing the broken code that remained of JARVIS.

“What is Ultron?” asked Toni, gently tracing a finger forlornly along the display.

“He was your response to the downfall of SHIELD. Your intent was to do as they had claimed to: provide a shield to protect the whole world.” The display changed to the blueprints for such a plan.

Mistake number one she thought to herself. “SHIELD fell?” she asked as she examined the plan in front of her.  
  
“SHIELD had been infiltrated with Hydra agents nearly since its beginnings, at all levels and in all departments. They had sleeper agents just waiting for the signal to turncoat and take control of SHIELD’s resources and authority.”

Perhaps a good thing she had been avoiding working with them then. “And I worked with SHIELD at the time?” The unsettling thought that perhaps this T.Stark was a Hydra double agent gave her a cold chill.

“In a sense. Iron Man is part of the Avengers.” FRIDAY brought up still images of four apparently-normal-sized people, a large green guy, and the Iron Man suit fighting in what appeared to be New York. Toni could see in the background of each that they were all fighting on the same side. She pointed to each in turn to check with FRIDAY that they were the same in this universe. She pointed at the sandy-colored hair, male, using a bow, “Hawkeye.” Then the intimidating woman with the red hair “Black Widow.” The large Nordic blond with brick-like hammer in hand “Thor.” “The big green guy’s the Hulk obviously.” She lingered on the final guy of the group. This world could be drastically different than hers. FRIDAY hadn’t mentioned there being a United States, but there could be no mistaking the stars & stripes, could there? “And this is Captain America?” It came out as more of a question than she would’ve liked.

“That’s right, boss.”

After collecting herself from the momentary panic, she remembered the important detail of why FRIDAY was showing her this. “And you said I worked with these people? I worked with Captain America?”

“Yessir, and a bit more than that with the Captain in particular.”

Toni’s eyes widened. “Are you implying what I think you’re implying?” She looked down at the toned, muscular body she found herself in. FRIDAY pulled up a Fox News article on the display, headlined with something offensively ignorant to the effect of “Captain America is gay!” Toni had no intent to read the article, with the headline confirming that the Fox News in this universe was probably just as bad. But the picture below it showed two men, one blond and buff, wearing a military dress uniform, and the other looking very much like her father even though he appeared to have made a very specific effort not to. The caption of the photo read “Captain America spends raucous night on the town with notorious playboy Tony Stark. Is the Captain becoming Stark’s new boytoy?” Clearly it had not been a mistake to work with SHIELD, part Hydra or not.

“So…Captain America is gay?” She wasn’t sure whether she felt disappointed that she’d never have the chance back in her own universe, or happy for this version of herself having ended up with him.

“No, the Captain identifies as bisexual. He likes the lads and the lasses. 

She let out a small sigh of relief, and returned to looking at the image of the article. Was it just her mind playing tricks, or did Captain America kind of look like the new guy at the front desk at Stark Industries? Without the cowl on, at least. Her eyes wandered to the date on the article. That would’ve been months ago. “FRIDAY, did something happen with him?”

“Yes, boss. The Sokovia Accords.” Said FRIDAY, her tone level. That must be mistake number two.


	2. Two heads are better than one.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Toni Stark are working on essentially the same machine, and their mixup might be found out.

“If his style is anything like my own, this is the power source.” She held up a small, obviously empty container. “What was in this, Friday?”

“It contained a particular variant of the Tesseract element that powers the Arc reactor,” the AI responded.

“Is there more of it?” asked Toni, examining the film that coated the inside of the container.

“Not enough for a full refill, and it will take days to synthesize more.”

“Then I’m just going to have to work with what we’ve got.” She didn’t mind being in this different body, but having a different mind would be obvious to anyone close to either T.Stark. And it seemed this version actually had quite a few people who regularly got close enough that they would notice.

[Meanwhile, back in Universe ♀…]

“Do you think she’d mind if I repurpose this…” Tony tapped a well-manicured finger on the casing of the large metal construction in front of him. “uh…‘depilatory device’ to working on a way to switch us back? It’s got a really nifty power supply I’m going to need to snag, among other things.”

“No, Toni would not mind. She has stated before that she might be better off, I quote “throwing the hunk of junk in the garbage” end quote. In order to get herself working on the significantly scaled down version that the board wants.” Jarvis responded.

Tony looked more closely at the mechanisms inside. “The board wants a smaller version, do they?” he whispered rhetorically. “Pull up the schematics for me, J, and get me started on a new copy in the three dimensional display.” He rolled carefully across the lab to a hologram projector and began re-positioning, resizing, and altering the 3D renderings of the machine. After a few moments, the device depicted was completely unrecognizable. Tony rolled the chair backwards a bit and contemplated the hologram. “Yeah, that might do it. Run schematics on that for me, would you, J?”

“Of course, sir,” the AI responded.

Might as well leave this girl with something for her trouble, Tony thought to himself. Who knows what she was dealing with back in his universe. He rolled back over to the device he had asked about earlier. His universe had been a mess when he left it. He removed the casing. That’s why he was attempting to build a time machine in the first place. He tossed the laser emitter in a nearby box of miscellaneous parts, he wouldn’t be needing that. He was clearly off his game, though, to have made this universe mind-switcher instead of what he had intended. He examined the power source closely. It wasn’t what he used in the original, but it would take days to synthesize the material, and that was assuming he remembered the formula absolutely correctly. And any number of things could go wrong with that if he didn’t.

[Back in Universe ♂...]

It had been difficult to adjust to male Tony’s lack of full ambidexterity. Using a holographic interface to compensate for the lack of finesse on the left side had helped, though. She was able to write down exactly what she was doing and why with one hand, while actually doing it with the other, just like at home, if a little slower. Now she was fairly close to finished with her adjustments. By her calculations, she had increased the machine’s efficiency by at least 52%. Assuming she was correct (of course she would be) this meant the machine would switch her back using the last of the compound. It had only amounted to two-thirds of the original necessary fuel, so she probably only had one shot at not having to stay switched for days.

“Boss, you’ve got trouble. Steve Rogers is headed down to your workshop and I’m unable to keep him out.”

“Steve Rogers?” Toni questioned. At that moment, a blond, broad-shouldered fiure caught her eye on the other side of the workshop’s clear glass door. “Captain America…” she mouthed, awestruck, but hopefully inaudibly so. Captain America stared at her sternly. “Let him in, Friday,” she said, lost in the moment. If Captain America wanted in, who was she to say no?

In a few wordless steps, Steve had crossed the length of the workshop. He took Tony’s face in his hands, and Toni could feel the warmth of the immediate oxytocin response. They must have been so close, so intimate for the body’s memory to still feel so strong with another mind inside it. Steve’s lips gently met Tony’s…

[Back in Universe ♀...]

Toni was back in her workshop, in her own body, but she felt the distinct lack of another person like being hit by a truck. She let out a petulant huff of a sigh. “J, can you look up “Steve Rogers” for me, see if anything like that is the name of somebody who works for me?” She took in the unfamiliar machine in front of her. It looked like someone had smashed the switching-machine she was working on in the other universe into her laser-shaver. Speaking of which, “Did he scrap my shaver to make a machine to get back?”

“Indeed, sir,” responded Jarvis. “Though he left designs that simulations show should produce a suitable replacement. I’ve taken the liberty of manufacturing a prototype.”

“Oh?” Toni could hardly hide her enthusiasm. To see something created by a mind as sharp as her own, but not quite her own, was just flat out exciting. She removed the paddle-shaped device from the fabricator and examined it. She held it in one hand and pulled up the schematic and simulation results with the other. After a few moments, she rolled up a pant leg, and slipped the loop of the paddle over her foot. “Here goes nothing. Dum-E, get the first aid kit ready.” She called to the bot across the room, then flipped a switch and the device lit up, humming softly. “Okay, so no third degree burns.” She turned off the device, removed it, and then inspected the neat line of hairless skin left behind. “Fantastic!”

“Sir, I have the results from your search for Steve Rogers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Turns out this second chapter is what probably needs retcon-ing. But I might've fixed it. Either way, I hope you guys liked it.

**Author's Note:**

> Part of my reason for not posting this is I may have to retcon part of it, which I realized exactly when I got to this point. But the retcon may mean this needs to be completely rewritten. It felt like a shame to let this draft just go to waste sitting on my hard drive, since there's definitely a way this story could go that wouldn't require the retcon. My hope in posting this is that maybe someone else will be inspired. So, even more than usual, if it inspires you, run with it. :)


End file.
